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This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it
by chrisshroba 1y ago
This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it turns red, and no one seems to care to solve it, but if they'd just station police at some worst-offender lights for a couple months to write tickets, people would catch on pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk. I have similar thoughts on people using their phones at red lights and people running stop signs.
- rahkiin 1y agoIn europe we use traffic cameras for this. Going through red light? A bill is in your mailbox automatically. No need for a whole police station.
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- williamcotton 1y agohttps://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-violations.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-v...
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- jakelazaroff 1y agoNobody thinks it's racist to enforce traffic laws. People think it's racist to selectively enforce traffic laws by race, which usually takes the form of police pulling over Black drivers at higher rates. (But it can also mean installing more traffic cameras in minority neighborhoods!)
- prettyblocks 1y agoNYC is ramping up on this as well.
- 0_____0 1y agoIn Massachusetts, USA, red light cameras were illegal until very recently, due to a 70s era law specifying that a live policeman had to issue a citation for something like that. From well before traffic cameras were common.
- rvnx 1y agoPut a single live policeman in front of 100 camera screens
- joecool1029 1y agoWe had a pilot program in NJ for them, they were universally hated. People would slam brakes on and be hanging over the edge into intersection and throw their car into reverse panicking to avoid the ticket, ended up causing a ton of new accidents so the program was never continued. In newark people shot at the cameras: https://www.nj.com/news/2012/08/shoot_out_the_red_lights_2_tra.html https://www.nj.com/news/2012/08/shoot_out_the_red_lights_2_t...
- Scoundreller 1y agoThankfully sawzalls are cheap and plentiful so people can use much safer practices to disable/remove them: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/parkside-drive-speed-camera-cut-down-for-sixth-time-in-eight-months-1.7581105 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/parkside-drive-speed-...
- potato3732842 1y agoI bet if you come back after they've removed the old one but before they install the new one you can wreck the threads on the threaded anchors by impacting the wrong size higher grade nut on.
- AlexeyBelov 1y agoThe comments is written as if you specifically advocate for this. Why?
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- mothballed 1y agoIn most the USA, or at least Arizona, you have to serve someone. Just dropping something in a mail box doesn't mean dick. The very people that invented the traffic cameras up in Scottsdale were caught dodging the process servers from triggers from their own camera. Another words, you have to spend hundreds of dollars chasing someone down, by the time you add that on to how easy it is to jam up the ticket in court by demanding an actual human being accuse you, it's not the easy win some may think. You're basically looking at $500+ to try and prosecute someone for a $300 ticket.
- joecool1029 1y agoNY is not Arizona. They have the plate and send the fine to whomever the vehicle is registered to. If the fine isn't paid they flag the plate and impound the car if it's driven in their state.
- cowthulhu 1y agoIn CO we have automatic traffic cameras, and to my knowledge they just mail you the ticket, which is usually only a fine (and no license points). Its one of those “automatic plea” tickets where if you fight it, you fight (and risk conviction on) the actual offense, while if you just pay the ticket it will automatically get downgraded to a less serious offense (IE parking outside the lines).
- rcpt 1y agoThis isn't true we've had plenty of programs where red light camera tickets were rolled out. Voters just really don't like them.
- mothballed 1y agoThey were rolled out but the mailed tickets are legally meaningless, someone has to actually hunt you down within a short timespan (I think 90 days) to create any binding requirement to address it. A mailed citation from a photo radar camera is not an official ticket and does not need to be responded to unless it has been formally served to you. https://rideoutlaw.com/photo-radar-tickets-in-arizona-a-comprehensive-guide/ https://rideoutlaw.com/photo-radar-tickets-in-arizona-a-comp...
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- pverheggen 1y agoWe have them in the US too, but it varies widely by jurisdiction because they're regulated at the state level and policed at the local level. Oh and it's not a bill, it goes through the legal system so people have the right to argue it in court if they want.
- throw-qqqqq 1y agoHere in my country they removed the cameras in the second largest city after a trial period. It took too much effort to filter out police colleagues running a red (in police or civilian vehicles).
- rahkiin 1y agoAh that is easy here. 1) civilian vehicles never get leeway 2) we know the license plates of all police cars so we just filter it. Or actually only do so when they use proper permission to run a light
- potato3732842 1y agoSimpler Plate lookup returns state/municipal as the owner -> ticket gets discarded.
- lysace 1y agoSweden: Their locations are public. There is even an official API. They are mostly located in sane places. Apps like Waze consume this API and warn drivers if they’re at risk of getting caught. It’s the deterrence/slowdown at known risky spots they’re after, not the fine, I guess. I heard that apps warning drivers this way are illegal in Germany?
- bryanlarsen 1y agoAside: what's up with the traffic speed cameras in Sweden? It feels like they're not designed to catch anybody. In my recent drive there it seemed like most of the cameras were in an 80 zone just before it switch to 50 for a tiny town. They wouldn't catch a typical driver who does something like 10 over everywhere -- they would likely have already started slowing down for the 50. In my city in Canada, that camera would be in the 50 zone.
- lysace 1y agoI think the general idea is strategic speed shaping before spots where lethal accidents are likely. So nudging, sort of. There’s a lot of public support for that.
- potato3732842 1y agoBecause the point is to slow the traffic down, not to extract revenue from the peasantry. Same as the difference between an obvious speed trap and a "gotcha" speed trap.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoBut does it slow people down? I doubt it has significant effect. Very few people are going to be going over 80 a few meters in front of a 50 sign. You essentially are only catching people who are doing close to double the upcoming speed limit. Those who are willing to do that should be getting much more severe punishment than a speeding ticket.
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- bsder 1y agoThe problem with traffic cameras in the US was that they became outsourced revenue enhancement rather than public safety. The cameras would get installed at busy intersections with lots of minor infractions to collect fines on rather than unsafe intersections that had lots of bad accidents. And then, when the revenue was insufficient, they would dial down the yellow light time. Consequently, and rightly, Americans now immediately revolt against traffic cameras whenever they appear. (San Diego was one particularly egregious example. They installed the cameras on the busy freeway interchange lights when the super dangerous intersection that produced all the T-bone accidents was literally one traffic light up the hill. This infuriated everybody.)
- oceanplexian 1y agoTry driving anywhere in the world that's not Western Europe or The USA and you'll quickly see how advanced even our worst cities are when it comes to traffic. Last time I was in China drivers simply go through four way intersections at top speed from all directions simultaneously. If you are a pedestrian I hope you're good at frogger because there is a 0% chance anyone will stop for you. I really wonder how self driving cars work because they must program some kind of insane software that ignores all laws or it wouldn't even be remotely workable.
- tehjoker 1y agoIt is kinda funny watching people complain here after visiting almost anywhere in Asia. Can't speak for Japan or Korea though.
- kelnos 1y agoI've never been to SK, but in Japan things are -- unsurprisingly, as one might guess -- very orderly. For the most part (in cities at least) you don't jaywalk, even when there are no cars on the road.
- yamazakiwi 1y agoSame in Korea, just on the other side of the road, very polite and professional, no one breaks rules for the most part, even in Major Cities. I know a lot of foreigners like Japan for motorcycling specifically because you can "white line" in most places, and the drivers are attentive. The one quirk I thought was most interesting was Crab Angle Stops or when at a T shape stop lights that have an additional stop light 20 feet further from the intersection. Sometimes the cars will align diagonally to allow more traffic per light and let whoever is in front have a better angle to see traffic on small roads with poor visibility. Then when the light turns green the diagonally aligned cars move back to normal. Like ////// to - - - - - - Officially, the 道路交通法 (Road Traffic Act) doesn’t say “you must angle.” It just requires drivers to stop at the line and confirm safety before entering. The diagonal stop is more of a local driving custom (practical adaptation) rather than a codified rule.
- jakogut 1y agoPeople are risking their lives and the lives of others, and a fine is supposed to be the thing that finally gets them to comply?
- Aurornis 1y agoThis is what the points system is for. Any individual infraction might only be a small fine, but it adds points to your license. Collect enough points and you risk license suspension. I’ve known a couple people who got close to having enough points for license suspension. They drove perfectly for years.
- jakogut 1y agoThat sounds reasonable to me. Everybody makes mistakes, but nobody should be consistently making grievous mistakes capable of causing serious injury or death to other motorists on a regular basis. I'm less concerned with a little speeding than I am with blowing through lights and stop signs.
- SoftTalker 1y agoI think in most areas with cameras where fines are automatically assesed to the vehicle owner (who is not necessarily the driver), there are no points. That way it's just a civil penalty and the burden of proof is low. "We have a photo" is enough.
- setgree 1y agoYou've got me: I believe that people respond to financial incentives. I don't think this is a radical position.
- Permit 1y agoYes. If they run a red light today there is some small chance they will injure/kill someone. If they run a red light with a camera, there is a 100% chance they will receive a ticket. The key factor is not the magnitude of the penalty (i.e. whether someone dies or they receive a fine) but the chance that they will encounter the penalty.
- orbisvicis 1y agoWait, so all the sibling comments are actually proposing bringing NYC traffic to a gridlock?
- polynomial 1y agoNew startup idea just dropped.
- Aurornis 1y agoIt’s amazing how effective even a slight amount of random law enforcement can be. Several of the hiking trails I frequent allow dogs but only on leash. Over time the number of dogs running around off leash grows until it’s nearly every dog you see. When the city starts putting someone at the trailhead at random times to write tickets for people coming down the trail with off-leash dogs suddenly most dogs are back on leash again. Then they stop enforcing it and the number of off-leash dogs starts growing.
- pradn 1y agoRandom sampling over time is substantially as effective as having someone enforce the law 100% of the time. It's something like how randomized algorithms can be faster than their purely-deterministic counterparts, or how sampling a population is quite effective at finding population statistics.
- groggo 1y agoIt feels less fair though. When everyone is driving x mph over the limit but only you get pulled over, it sucks. So I agree for efficiency of enforcement, but I'd rather see 100% enforcement (automated if possible), with more warnings and lower penalties.
- chrisweekly 1y agoIt doesn't just "feel" less fair, it often is -- bc it's not truly random, it's selective enforcement which leads to things like "driving while black".
- Breza 1y agoUnpopular opinion, but I actually like traffic enforcement cameras. They don't know what race you are, and they never end up escalating to using lethal force.
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- liasejrt 1y agoI think (or at least I hope) St Louis is primarily focused on reducing their sky-high murder rates. But who knows.
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- Dylan16807 1y agoPhone while stopped at a red light is explicitly legal here. I don't think it's been a problem?
- potato3732842 1y agoWhat the actual rules are matter far less than that traffic is predictable. Like in Boston it's typical for a few cars to get into the intersection to take a left, traffic goes around them in both directions and only on the change to red to they go. Not technically legal but normal. 4-way stops where nobody stops and everyone times their roll unless there's a reason to. Also not technically legal but normal. Nobody with an opinion worth caring about complains about these things. Blowing lights many seconds after they've changed is still wild IMO.